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Donald A. Yerxa is professor of history emeritus at Eastern Nazarene College and editor of Fides et Historia, the journal of the Conference on Faith and History. From 2001 to 2014, he served as an officer of The Historical Society (THS) and editor of its bulletin Historically Speaking, published after 2008 by the Johns Hopkins University Press. From 2011 to 2014, he was director of THS’s “Religion and Innovation in Human Affairs” grants program, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Peter Harrison is an Australian Laureate Fellow and Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Before coming to UQ he was the Idreos Professor of Science and Religion and Director of the Ian Ramsey Centre at the University of Oxford. He has published extensively in the field of intellectual history with a focus on the philosophical, scientific and religious thought of the early modern period, and has a particular interest in historical and contemporary relations between science and religion.

On 5 September 2018, Doru Costache talked about ‘Creation or Evolution? Early Christian Views of Genesis 1’ during an event organised at Macquarie University by Catholic Society, Catholic Chaplaincy, and Orthodox Chaplaincy. In his talk, in line with his essay ‘Terra Lucida or Free of the Mists of Confusion,’ he discussed the need to draw a line between creation and creationism, also between evolution and evolutionism, and suggested that whereas creationism and evolutionism cannot be bridged, there is a way of connecting creation and evolution. The impossibility to bridge creationism and evolutionism comes from their very opposite ideological allegiances, to supernaturalism and naturalism respectively. These ideologies cancel each other by working with an either/or mentality. In turn, given that the doctrine of creation represents a theological interpretation of reality and the theory of evolution a scientific description of reality, creation and evolution can be bridged since the competences of theology and science do not overlap. There is no competition there. One, theology, interprets reality, the other, science, describes reality. Costache pointed out further that given the theological nature of Genesis 1, the scriptural narrative does not offer a scientific description of reality, instead interpreting it from the vantage point of God. Also, the chiastic or mirroring structure of Genesis 1 points to its destination for liturgical use and personal contemplation. He ended by analysing a series of passages from early Christian theologians who considered Genesis 1 an introduction to theology, not a scientific report, and a key to decipher the workings of the world as an ongoing event of synergy or interaction between the created and the uncreated.